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Monday, May 28, 2018

On Reading the Long Novel

by Lael Ewy

When one references
War and Peace, one does so in order to invoke a cliché. War
and Peace is the quintessentially long novel. It is known for
that and for nearly nothing else—certainly not as something anyone
would actually read.

In fact, the cliché
itself is really not about the length of the book; the cliché is about the
impossibility of reading it, and the disdain the speaker has for long novels.

For these reasons,
among others, I set out to actually read it.

I suppose people
hear the call to engage in physical challenges such as running
marathons to prove something to themselves (or others), or the call
to climb mountains “because [they are] there,” but I set out to
read War and Peace in order to try to restore reality to it.
For at least one living member of the species, it would become a novel
again.

Since you probably
won’t read it, here’s what you need to know from someone who has:

1. It’s good. For
the most part. It’s not the novel you’d think it should be at
least in part because novels weren’t what you now think they are
when Tolstoy wrote it. Hundreds of pages are devoted to the analysis
of the individual’s place in history and the minutiae of the War of
1812. The latter was of great importance to his expected audience,
and it might still be of interest to scholars of military history.
The former should be of interest to anyone with a pulse. But

2. no doubt all that
would annoy contemporary readers. I honestly have no idea what
contemporary readers want out of a novel these days. Apparently, they
want to be terrified by the prospect of a dystopian future. To me,
this seems silly given that the prospect of a dystopian present is
quite frightening enough. However,

3. it’s not a
“hard” read. There’s merely a lot of it there. Tolstoy, as is
typical of the great Russian writers, draws characters who are
detailed and complex, so if you put the book down for a while, it’s
easy to pick back up. Like with old friends, you may not recall every
detail of their lives since you saw them last, but you’ll always
remember who they are.

Few western European
writers create characters who are this fully realized. Perhaps
Dickens’ main characters, but he also populated his book with
caricatures in a way that Tolstoy never would. Even soldiers we meet
for only a few pages seem like real people we might know. In the US,
maybe Hurston Henry James, or Melville (at his best) were capable of
such things, as, perhaps, the greatest of the French.

4. It’s a romance,
historical novel, and philosophical treatise. And that’s probably
why it’s so long. The historical figures, including Napoleon
himself, as the other characters, come across as actual people. The
book’s philosophy, while I disagree with it, must be defended, and
the novel almost achieves that as well. To a degree, the characters
themselves might contradict the philosophy it seems to promote, but
perhaps Tolstoy intended that, pitting the lived experiences of the
humans against the cynicism and determinism of the narrator.

At any rate, it’s
ambitious. That’s in its favor overall, but it also means that
there is a lot for the book to do.

5. Reading it is
familiar if you’re used to 19h century novels and philosophy. Most
people these days aren’t, I guess, and maybe that’s why they
should read more 19th century novels and philosophy.

Reading War and
Peace will change your orientation to time, people, and thought,
and that’s a good thing. The thinking that most people are able to
do is severely compromised by the media they have chosen to consume.
We’re unable to think long thoughts because we seldom encounter
them. We’re distracted because we surround ourselves with
distractions. And consume media we do: popping tweets like we do
Skittles and gnawing video games like endless bags of chips. This has
reinforced our inability to think in a coherent way. We may have deep
maps in our minds of a million virtual adventures, but if we’re
unable to appreciate the lives of those we believe are not like
us—the Russians of 200 years ago or a Black laundress in the Jim
Crow South—maybe we’re wasting our time. Perhaps we’ve
“escaped” during the time we’ve played, but we haven’t really
prepared ourselves to make the world we inevitably re-enter a better
place.